Sunday, September 28, 2014

“Brooklyn Marshall used to be a policeman in
London, with a wife and a promising future ahead of him. Then he accidentally
killed a rioter whose father was a Member of Parliament and had him convicted
of murder. To ease the burden on the overcrowded prison system, Brooklyn was
sold into slavery rather than incarcerated. Now, he's the "Mean
Machine", a boxer on the slave prizefighting circuit, pummelling other
slaves for the entertainment of freemen and being rented out for the sexual
service of his wealthier fans.

When Nathaniel Bishop purchases Brooklyn's
services for a night, it seems like any other assignation. But the pair form an
unexpected bond that grows into something more. Brooklyn hesitates to call it
"love"—such things do not exist between freemen and slaves—but when
Nathaniel reveals that he wants to help get Brooklyn's conviction overturned,
he dares to hope. Then, an accident in the ring sends Brooklyn on the run,
jeopardizing everything he has worked so hard to achieve and sending him into
the most important fight of all—the fight for freedom.”

My thoughts:

Anybody keeping an eye on my reviews may have
noticed that I’m a fan of Aleksandr Voinov. He’s on that list of authors whose
books I buy without second thought, even without reading the blurb in too much
detail, secure in the knowledge that I’m going to love what I’ll find between
the covers.

Counterpunch was no exception to that rule.
And, up to a point, that’s surprising. I’m not a fan of boxing, to put it
mildly. I actively avoid having to watch it and would, under most
circumstances, stay away from it in my reading as well. But, just as Aleksandr
could make me read about World War II when I’d sworn I’d leave that subject
alone, he could make me read about boxing and enjoy the story.

Counterpoint contains a very nice mix between
alternate universe circumstances and celebrities and situations we recognise
from our own reality. Being able to recognise so much of the world Brooklyn and
Nathaniel live in, made this story real and therefore more heart wrenching than
it would have been in a outright fantastical setting. It didn’t take a huge
imaginary leap to believe the slavery premise of the story. In fact, slavery is
only taking community service combined with a security bracelet one step
further, isn’t it? I mean we’ve all seen the protests where police forces are
attacked by those marching. Accidents happen. A policeman killing one of the
protesters has happened and is bound to happen again. In our world the guilty
cop might not end up in slavery, boxing to stay alive, but he might well be ostracised
and end up living a life he’d never imagined in his worst nightmares.

Because it was all too easy to read this story
as if it were taking place in the world I live in, because it stayed close
enough to reality to make me forget it was fiction on one or two occasions,
Brooklyn’s story took a hold of my heart. I completely got the constant battle
between anger and frustration. I understood how dangerous it was for him to
hope or to trust his emotions when the merest slip could bring him face to face
with torturous punishment.

The story is told from Brooklyn’s perspective
which means that the reader is as much in the dark about Nathaniel’s motives
and feelings as Brooklyn is. As readers we might be a bit more inclined to be
optimistic about the eventual outcome than Brooklyn is, but Nathaniel’s actions
were mysterious enough to keep me on my toes and racing through the words
towards what I hoped would be a happy ending.

Aleksandr Voinov’s writing voice is one that
appeals to me. I can’t put my finger on what exactly it is that works so well
for me but every single book I’ve read by this author has drawn me in and
captured me, regardless of the setting or subject matter. The books almost read
themselves. All I have to do is show up and the stories take over, the
characters come alive and I can hear their dialogue in my head. Aleksandr is
one of a few authors I’ll be forever grateful I’ve found as well as one I’ll
continue reading as long as there are new (to me) stories to be found.

Monday, September 15, 2014

“Carlotta
O'Keefe is happily engaged, and the wedding plans are coming together. She's
clear about her future path, both personally and in her busy career. Maybe
Chris doesn't make her heart race every time she sees him, but you can't have
that feeling for ever. Can you?

Then,
on a trip to Seville, Carlotta runs into Luke Evans. Luke broke her heart so
long ago she'd almost convinced herself she'd forgotten him. Now, he's not that
boy any more, but an attractive and intriguing man. And he can explain everything
that happened way back when. Suddenly Carlotta's not so sure of anything any
more.”

My
thoughts:

This
probably wasn’t the book for me. I liked the idea behind the story – two people
who’d fallen in love as teenagers before being ruthlessly torn apart,
reconnecting almost two decades later – but wasn’t overly impressed with the
execution.

While
I understand this is the story of Carlotta’s journey I still felt we saw too
little of Luke Evans to make the premise believable. I know that first loves
leave a lasting impression. I had no issue buying into Carlotta staying mildly
obsessed with Luke over the years given the abrupt and unexpected separation
years ago and the revelations afterwards. I didn’t even have a problem with her
wanting to cancel her marriage because meeting Luke again made her doubt her
feelings for her fiancé, Chris. In fact, that made sense. If it takes as little
as one accidental meeting with an old flame and one passionate kiss to doubt whether
or not you want to marry the man you’re engaged to, you are better off
cancelling the whole affair. The only thing I did have a major issue with, was
the ease with which she also allows her precious career to fall by the wayside
after she meets Luke in Spain for the second time. She doesn’t know anymore
about the man he’s become than she did at the start of the book and yet she
throws her whole life upside down on the gamble he still resembles the boy she
fell in love with as a teenager. It didn’t make sense and didn’t appear to fit
the Carlotta I had gotten to know while reading the book.

I
thought it was a shame the reader wasn’t given the opportunity to get to know
Luke better. It might have been easier to suspend disbelieve and buy Carlotta’s
change of heart and life if we’d been given a better idea of who and what
exactly Luke was.

The
story dragged for me at times. While I get what the author was doing; giving us
a blow by blow account of a woman in her thirties reassessing her life and
everything she’s held to be true up until then, I got a big bogged down by all
the detail at times. In fact, the first 270 or so pages of this book all appear
to be an introduction to a dramatic escalation of events. Suddenly everything
happens at once, and while Carlotta’s break up with Chris was credible, the
sudden implosion of her relationship with her best friend Sive seemed over the
top and unrealistic. I guess it made perfect sense from a dramatic – turn the
story on its head sort of – point of view, but it didn’t seem to fit the
friendship they had until that moment and appeared to come out of nowhere. Just
as what Sive did next, didn’t sit right with me and didn’t appear to add
anything to the story either.

Anybody
reading this review would be forgiven for thinking I didn’t like the book at
all. And yet, that isn’t quite right either. As I said, I liked the idea behind
the story. I enjoyed watching Carlotta slowly but carefully working out the
priorities in her life. If You Were Me is a well written
book and very easy to read (although it was equally easy to put down at times).
Maybe it is just that I want more interaction between the two characters who
will be the happy couple by the end of the book, while I’m reading the story. Or
maybe it was just because I didn’t really warm to Carlotta.

Don’t
allow my review to put you off. If you’ve read and enjoyed Sheila O’Flanagan
books before, you will probably love this one too. If you’re a fan of Irish ‘women’s
fiction’ this book will be right up your street. It just wasn’t quite up mine.

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About Me

My name is Marleen. I'm Dutch but have been living in Ireland for well over 15 years now. I have a passion and love for reading and books. Since early 2008 I have been lucky enough to have been working part time in the library in Bailieborough, Co. Cavan where among other things I run the library reading group.
I will read almost anything that has words in it, and post my thoughts on everything I read in this blog:

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In this blog I write my thoughts on every book I read. Some I will have brought home from the library, some will have been bought while others will have been sent to me for review. I do not get paid for reading and reviewing any books and all opinions are mine and mine alone. Whether a book was borrowed, bought or received will be indicated at the top of every review.

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